Framed and painted mailing envelope,from Jan Sawka to George Brazillier.
Painting: 12.25" x 17.25"
Frame: 18.25"x 22.25"
The artist Sawka is known for having designed a lot of sets for the band The Grateful Dead.Sawka designed a 10-story tall set for The Grateful Dead's 25th Anniversary tour(see below).
David's notes: Jan Sawka is a famous artist(see below),and George Braziller is a famous art book publisher.Sawka obviously was having fun painting the envelope that he mailed something to Braziller, and one of the people who worked for Braziller said she remembers seeing the framed envelope behind Brazillers desk mounted on the wall when she went to see him, so it must have meant alot to the book publisher.Information on both men are below.
(From Wiki):In 1946, Sawka was born to an architect father and linguist mother, Jan and Maria Sawka, in the Silesian city of Zabrze. His childhood was overshadowed by his father's Stalin-era political imprisonment. Sawka completed two master's degrees; in painting and print-making from the Wrocław Fine Arts Academy and in Architectural Engineering from the Institute of Technology in Wrocław. By his late 20s, Sawka was a star of the famed Polish Poster School and a leading artist of the counter-culture. His oppositionist activities lead to his exile in 1976. After 1977, he resided in New York, becoming part of the American cultural mainstream. Early in his time in the United States, Sawka created editorial drawings for the New York Times, while developing a multi-faceted career that encompassed printmaking, painting, sculpture, and theater design. Numerous galleries have exhibited his paintings and prints, and he has designed for such theaters as the Harold Clurman, Jean Cocteau Repertory and Samuel Beckett Theater. Sawka's works are in over 60 museums around the world and he has had over 70 solo shows at international museums and galleries. His awards have included the 1975 Oscar de la Peinture in Cagnes-sur-Mer, France for painting and the Gold Medal at the 1978 Warsaw Poster Biennial. In 1981, when martial law was imposed in Poland, the AFL-CIO sponsored a bipartisan fundraiser that sold Sawka's Solidarity poster in the millions to provide immediate support to the besieged Solidarity movement. In 1989, Sawka designed a 10-story tall set for The Grateful Dead's 25th Anniversary tour. In 1993, he created his first full multi-media spectacle, "The Eyes" in Japan. This was the beginning of his collaboration with Japanese studios and corporations, which includes the creation of high-tech interactive sculptures and monumental installations, as well as designs for full-scale monumental architecture. Sawka designed "The Tower of Light Cultural Complex" for Abu Dhabi, U.A.E., presented to the Royal Family in 1996. A pilot version of "The Voyage", a full-length multimedia spectacle, won the Gold Medal in Multi-Media at the 2003 Florence Contemporary Art Biennial. He is represented ACA Galleries in New York's Chelsea arts district.On August 9, 2012, Sawka died of a heart attack in his home in High Falls, New York.[1] He was 65. At the time of his death the artist was focused on completing the feature-length, final version of "Voyage."Selected points from career1975 Oscar de la Peinture award and the special prize of the President of France, 7th International Painting Festival, Cagnes-sur-Mer, France.1986 NY Times Book of the Year for A Book of Fiction, Clarkson and Potter, New York.
(From Wiki):George Braziller (February 12, 1916[1] – March 16, 2017)[2] was an American book publisher and the founder of George Braziller, Inc., a firm known for its literary and artistic books and its publication of foreign authors.Braziller was first employed as a shipping clerk, during the Great Depression. In 1941, George and Marsha Braziller founded the Book Find Club, which was smaller than the Book of the Month Club but exceedingly successful, "with a reputation for seriousness of purpose.They then began the Seven Arts Book Society in 1951 and in 1955 they began to publish their own books.[5] The Braziller publishing firm is located at 277 Broadway, Suite 708, in Manhattan, New York City. When Braziller travelled to Europe in the late 1960s,[4] he was in Paris during the events of May 1968 which led to the collapse of the de Gaulle government.[verification needed] Henri Alleg's autobiography La Question, which he brought back from that trip and published in English language translation,[7] was his firm's first big success in the United States.[citation needed]While I was there, a book came out [La Question]. I got the book, took it back to America, got a hold of Richard Howard to translate it, brought the book out overnight, and we sold 10,000 copies.[verification needed] Just like that we became famous. Those were really exciting times in Paris. I remember you'd go to the corner café, and there were artists like Max Ernst, Giacometti, Calder, and then the writers, poets, playwrights, dramatists like Camus, Michaux, Ionesco, Dürrenmatt ... Those were the early years, when you would say "only in America" could you start a book club with only 25 bucks and move it up to 100,000 members and then start a publishing house.— George Braziller, Brooklyn Rail interview.[4]In 2011 George Braziller retired at the age of 95. His son Michael Braziller of Persea Books,[8] became publisher and editorial director while George's elder son Joel Braziller became secretary-treasurer and director of permissions. With a small team they maintain the Braziller tradition with new series and a rich backlist.[5]References Braziller, George. "United States Public Records Index". Family Search. Retrieved 2 December 2013. Italie, Hillel (March 17, 2017). "George Braziller, literary publisher dies at 101" Archived 2017-03-18 at the Wayback Machine, Associated Press. Retrieved 2017-03-19. Sommerville, Henry S. "2003 Visiting Fellow and Library Research Grant". Friends of the Princeton University Library. Princeton University. Archived from the original on October 12, 2012. The new publishing house followed the model of the book club, bringing out works of popular physical and social science, literature, and art, often reviving out-of-print books that found a grateful audience. Braziller soon added new fiction by foreign authors, especially French 'new novelists,' and debut novels by American authors ... By the close of the 1960s, Braziller's importance as a publisher of literary and artistic books rivaled that of larger publishers and marked the firm as a leader in these fields. Sommerville's dissertation, "Commerce and Culture in the Career of the Permanent Innovative Press: New Directions, Grove Press, and George Braziller Inc." (University of Rochester, 2009) is available online through the University of Rochester's scholarly repository. Braziller, George; Bui, Phong (February 2005). "George Braziller in Conversation with Phong Bui". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved October 28, 2019. "History". George Braziller. Retrieved October 28, 2019. "George Braziller [homepage]". George Braziller, Inc. Retrieved 2017-03-19. D. W. Brogan (June 8, 1958). "The Edge of the Abyss; THE QUESTION. By Henri Alleg. Introduction by Jean - Paul Sartre. Translated by John Calder from the French La Question. 123 pp. New York: George Braziller. $2.95". The New York Times. Retrieved October 28, 2019. "About". Persea Books. Retrieved October 28, 2019.

Good condition overall